happy thanksgiving, from gomez and narcissa

it's so strange that last year at this time, we lost lurch, our first, glorious turkey tom. and now, this year, gomez (who was given to us earlier this year) has been sick! i can't help but wonder if it's some collective turkey angst they are feeling. not to guilt my dear readers with this post - we do eat meat around here, but not our friends. typical american dissonance going on.

this thanksgiving is a little meager on the food front... hub can only eat soft foods still, following on his hospital trip, and i opted for green bean casserole, one of my faves. but still some lovely pumpkin pie, candlelight, crafting, writing, maybe a fire in the woodstove later.. all the wonderful things we enjoy every day.

even though gomez is still a little pooky, he seems to be doing better. and so is hub. we are all very thankful for that, and for so many things, and trying to stay in that gratitudinal frame of mind.

wishing you love this turkey day.

for newborn hats..

last night was in the hospital with hub. he's ok today and we're finally home, but we are down one night of sleep. nights spent like that, among unknown doctors and iv's and strange lighting, they always seem surreal. like a tv show (the kingdom is one of my faves). i had to snap some pics to return to some normalcy before taking to my bed.

btw i crocheted two awesome pairs of bunny paws in the hospital. i was comforted by the yarn and my hand-carved wooden crochet hook (a sweet gift from hub) and supportive emails from cindy. the nurses took no notice the bit of fluff flying around. although one showed me a phone pic of a sweater that his mum had knitted for him.. it took her ten years.

so many friends

just a few snaps from today.. i'm in good company.
and i'm going to visit a couple of rabbits tomorrow.
they are looking for homes.. one has outlived her breeding years..
and the other has floppy ears! not ideal for an angora.
so the farmer offered them to me.
alvin, the german angora lop! and almond delight, a chocolate french grand dame.

i never know if i should expand and have more rabbits, for fun and for my business. i change my mind on this all the time. we have six, which is a lot! and they are a lot of work. but right now, i end up buying a good bit of fiber to meet the demand in my shop (a dream come true)! i can usually supplement this way, but sometimes it isn't easy to find - and i must know where it comes from, only from farmers and bunnies i know and love.

so hub and i find ourselves once again thinking about expanding our rabbitry/screened porch.. and if so, how? should we actually raise rabbits? or should we just take in retired and unwanted rabbits? (i've long admired Sandy of Homestead Wool, a true animal-friendly farm.) i don't want to get overwhelmed with rabbits. so it's probably best not to get into breeding, because that can get out of hand really quickly. and i don't want to sell animals. but we both love taking care of critters. and we don't have kids at home.
and..

wish me luck tomorrow meeting alvin and almond delight.

oh! and today i had an awesome score.
we have recycling centers in each little town with swap shops, which is just that.
a shed where people leave things and take things.
some beautiful soul left (just for me, i'm convinced)
a MASSIVE crocheted ruffle.
it is so huge that i had trouble carrying it by myself.
here it is covering my entire worktable:



when i first spied it, i thought it was a bedspread, but no, it has a very definite edge. and it's about 16 feet long!
was it a valance? a bedskirt? an alien life form? what on earth could it be used for?
oh, what a find !

under wraps

i love wrapping etsy packages..
this one was for my dear lisa.
she loves beautiful trimmings as much as i do.

seemingly lots of changes afoot these days.
with hub's business, my own studio time and then traveling around..
but i'm home for awhile and busy with my fingers in many pots. just like i like it.

what's inside

this handmade doll body, picked up by mum to go with an antique china head that she had also found, had a surprising interior.. not sawdust or excelsior or cotton... but tightly rolled-up old quilt pieces. we don't want to take the body apart to examine it... but are enjoying how it's peeking out from its sutures..






if i know mum, soon she'll have her head attached and be prettily dressed and very dignified once again.

i'm discovering much about the interior journey lately. still feeling a bit pre-verbal but hopefully i'll be able to share more with you soon.

paws up!

i've been doing a lot of mitt-making. the angora rabbit fur is so warm that they are great for sore joints, and cold nights. paws up, little monsters! let's ring in this new year of the Wild.

ain't the roses sweet

i traveled to asheville over the weekend for SAFF, the biggest fiber fair in the southeast u.s. i met my old friend janet. i hadn't seen her in years. we went to this festival together in the early 2000's, both wishing we could spend all our time crafting. i was full of memories of that weekend and all that's changed in the interim.

we stayed up almost all night each night gabbing, ate lots of pasta (janet's favorite). i took a heritage crochet class with rita de maintenon. fell in love with a ram named ty. janet said i needed to see the grove park inn, and she was so right. brought home some new books, tools, fleece... and talked to a number of lovely vendors. saw wild turkeys in someone's yard. SAFF has to be a annual event for me, it has to!

archaeology of elders

i had a big surprise once i started removing the binding from this quilt. i had planned to just use it as the center of my elder cloth and expand around it with the wool blanket and other pieces, but as it turns out... it had been a larger quilt at one time, and had been folded in half and re-bound and quilted... presumably due to the wear on the top side, now the inside...







so strange how i've had this quilt for a while and had no idea what treasures were inside. some of the patterns look 30s or 40s with their dotted designs. i still love the back, it reminds me of hobo fabrics, but with this discovery, i'm rethinking the whole design.

i find all these tatters and bits of batting incredibly beautiful. i'd like to just tack most of them down rather than patch over them, but some of them i'll patch with the elder-dyed muslin. i also thought about trying to felt some of them down.. i'm assuming the batting is cotton, but perhaps i could add some wool. although i don't want to do anything to further damage the fabrics, so i doubt that would work. i'd have to remove the top layer of piecing and apply it to a prefelt, and i don't know how much of it would survive. i've seen quilts that looked almost as delicate as this one in places, but i do want it to be strong and usable as a blanket, preferably even washable. would a million quilting stitches on top of the batting accomplish that?

for the new year, inspired by jude, i've started to set a course. the theme is 'wild' or 'the wild.' i don't have a colour or shape yet. brown is feeling good right now, but i'm not sure i've fully explored grey yet. and then blue has been coming up for me a lot lately, and that is new. i don't have a shape yet either, i'm not sure i work that way.

things are weird here right now. the beginning of fall has me looking inward and wanting to go deeper. i always want things to stay the same and am reluctant to take things apart, get rid of or improve anything. wabi-sabi is such a fabulous, comforting philosophy and aesthetic, but i worry that so much nostalgia keeps me stuck, disempowered, and keeps me from taking part. always obsessing over what to keep, what to mend, what to give up... and too much inertia. i feel the need for some deep healing and release and think i'm ready.

the boys..

the lamb twins were born in august to parsley, a ewe who also birthed twins in the spring at the 'ripe' age of 11.

so they were a 'whoops' and their mama didn't have enough milk.

so the shepherdess bottle-raised them and looked for a home and found me.

they are jacob sheep, known for their spots and their horns.

little basil has four horns and oregano, his brother, has two.

i love their names but i've taken to calling them lovey..

and pokey... nicknames are good too.

they are crazy about their bottles.

and settling in really well.

they are very special.

for anyone who's doing instagram, mine has turned into instalamb.

elderberry and blueberry

i dyed the cloth pictured down at the bottom of this post, a lovely handwoven wool one, for my elder cloth.








the blanket was two bolts of fabric hand stitched together, so i unstitched it and dyed half with elderberry and half with blueberry. with the elderberry, i rolled the leaves into the blanket and hot bundled (steamed) it on the stove and then let it sit for about a week. for the blueberry side, i had frozen some blueberries, and i rolled them into the fabric and pounded them a bit with a hammer, and then bundled and let it sit in cold water with a sprinkle of wood ash for about a week. (techniques inspired by and learned from india flint's books.)

elderberry's mule friend for much of her life was named blueberry, who predeceased her by about twelve years. elderberry mourned her for a long time. so now they'll be reunited in cloth.

things have been exciting around here though.. we brought home two bottle babies, lamb twins, the other day. they were already named, basil and oregano. and the story continues.